


Smarties

by thesearchforbluejello



Series: Normal Jobs [1]
Category: Whiskey Cavalier (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, also the title is a pun so that's cool, and also I have to tag, for the first time in my life I have to use the tag, just a series of events that might be inaccurately construed as one, so I'm weirdly invested in George and Peggy, so have a George and Peggy au, there's no real plot here, this has way too many references to "The English Job"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 15:06:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18284747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesearchforbluejello/pseuds/thesearchforbluejello
Summary: George Knuth finds himself working with a new partner when he transfers to the London office.





	Smarties

**Author's Note:**

> Hey ho I could watch six seasons and a movie of George and Peggy, okay. I barely even proofread this. I'm not proud.

He opens the office door and flips on the light. It's a small space, two desks shoved together in the center, filing cabinets along the wall, and a whiteboard on the opposite side. There are notes on it, small, neatly written bullet points in multiple colors that he assumes must be some kind of organizational system. He squints at it across the desks as he sets his bag down, trying to make sense of the cramped letters. 

He looks up as someone halts suddenly in the doorway. She stares at him, eyes wide, mouth pressed into a thin line. 

“Hi,” he says, stepping around the desk, “hello. I'm George, George Knuth.”

She stares at him a moment longer before finally shaking his outstretched hand. “Peggy,” she says. 

“Nice to meet you. I just got here; they told me I'd be sharing this office with you since we're both assigned to the Kolev International job at the moment.”

“Oh,” she says. “Okay.” She sets her messenger bag down on her desk and looks at his stuff as though it's strange to see it there. 

“I'll stay out of your hair as much as possible,” he says, noticing. 

Her eyes flick up to him in surprise. “No, it's fine. We're… working together, I just didn’t… really expect to have a partner on this job.”

He tilts his head. “I'm sorry, I just-- are you American?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I just got transferred from the New York office. I've never even been to London before this week. Gosh, I can't tell you what a relief it is to meet someone who knows what that's like,” he laughs. “Being an ex-pat, I mean.” 

She smiles a little at that. “I got my transfer here three months ago, so I do know what that's like.”

“Good!” he says as he sits down. The chair is so low he ends up with his elbows awkwardly on the desk. “Gosh,” he says to himself, reaching for the lever to raise the chair. Peggy smiles and George notices that she studiously looks at her desk as she sets her bag on the floor. “So. Bring me up to speed?”

***** 

“This is excellent,” George says, digging his fork into the rice again and trying not to let the grains fall between the tines. 

“I told you,” Peggy says. 

“You did, you did.” George points with his fork to the screen. “So I'm thinking that we could make some improvements with--”

He's interrupted by the door being pushed open. “Hey George. Hii Peggy.”

“Oh, hi Amelia!” George says. 

“We’re on lunch,” Peggy says stiffly.

Amelia glances at her, brow furrowing a bit, obviously taken aback. “I know.” She looks at George, brushing her bangs across her forehead. “I just came to see if you wanted coffee. I just brewed a new pot.”

“Oh, uh, thanks! I do love coffee.” He grins; Peggy snorts with derision and stabs her fork back into her rice. “I’ll grab some in a bit. I don’t think it would go well with Chinese,” he says, gesturing to the takeout with his fork.

“Oh,” Amelia says. “Okay.”

The door shuts behind her. George takes another bit of his fried rice. “She seems nice.”

“I don’t like her,” Peggy says.

“What? Why?” Peggy shrugs. “What did she do to you?” Peggy shrugs again, a bit more stiffly, and tosses her styrofoam plate in the trash. She ducks below the desk and George hears her rustling in her bag. “You should try harder to make friends here.”

“No thanks,” she says. She slides a bag across the desks to him. 

"M&Ms?!" he shouts. "Where did you get M&Ms?!"

She shrugs. "I have my sources." He just stares at her for a moment until she raises her eyebrows. "I ordered them on Amazon," she says, like it’s obvious.

 

George laughs. "I can't believe-- you know how much I love M&Ms." Peggy smiles, her focus on ripping the corner of the bag. "Smarties just aren't the same."

"They're too sweet," she agrees. “I didn’t appreciate that comment, by the way.” She pushes her glasses up with her fingers on the bottom edge of the frame. “I don’t need friends.”

“Everyone needs friends.”

“I don’t.”

“I don't believe that. I’ve been here a month now and I’m the only person who’s not too afraid to talk to you.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snaps.

"Maybe, I don't know, if you were nicer, you might have friends other than me," he says, holding his hands up in an emphasized shrug. 

 

Peggy looks at him, mouth slightly open in outrage. She looks truly angry at him for the first time. She's surpassed the usual irritation she throws his way and instead looks like she's about to walk away. Instead, she surprises him. 

"Take that back," she says, throwing a handful of M&Ms at him. 

"No! You could make plenty of friends!"

"I meant about you being my friend," she says, throwing another M&M at him. 

"Ow! Stop wasting those!" 

She pauses for a moment and when her anger dissolves into a smile it's like she can't help herself. Then they're both laughing, doubled over in their chairs.

“I’m glad,” she says, when they can breathe again and the smile disappears from his face in surprise. “That we’re friends,” she says, nodding, specifying as though he didn’t follow. “But, for the record, I do have other friends.” 

“How many?” he asks as she opens the door.

“One,” she says, casting a last glance at him before disappearing behind the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To get us coffee.”

George can’t wipe the smile off his face.  
*****

Peggy taps the edge of her glass on the surface of the bar. Again.

George reaches out and stills her hand with his own. “Would you stop?” he says, a little more harshly than he intended.

She glares at him but stills her hand. “Watch your tone,” she says. It takes him a moment before he realizes that his hand is still on hers and he pulls it away, a little too quickly. He’s definitely a little drunk. Even though Peggy is still angry, and rightly so, he can see the flush in her face, high on her cheeks, and knows she’s a little drunk too. They’d worked through lunch and he’d dragged her to the pub when their shift ended because they were both in sore need of a drink. And so here they are, listening to Despacito intermittantly audible beneath the hum of voices in the pub. 

Peggy crosses her arms on the bar and lays her forehead on her wrists with a sigh. “I can’t believe we fucked this up. How did we fuck this up.”

“It’ll be fine,” George says. She doesn’t respond so he puts his hand on her back, between her shoulders. “Pegs, it’ll be fine. We’ll fix it tomorrow.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Come on, I’ll walk you to the bus station.”

“Okay.”

It’s a calm night and the city is glowing hazily around them. Or maybe that’s just one too many margaritas. Peggy still looks sullen so he puts an arm around her shoulders. “I know you’re invested in this project. We’ve been working on it for four months and are up against rollout next week; I understand, believe me. But it’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

He gives her shoulders a squeeze. “I know that you’re my partner, so I know we’ll be fine.” She hums a discontented response and maybe it’s the tequila or just his natural stubbornness, but he’s not about to let this go. "I’m serious. I know that even though you're a wiz with technology you still write your grocery lists on paper and you still write your to-do lists on the whiteboard because writing helps you think." They’re at the station and she turns to face him. He sets his hands on his shoulders. “I know you don’t want friends, and I know you don’t trust anyone enough to work on the bigger team projects, which is _why_ ,” he insists when she looks away, “you got stuck with me. So trust _me_. We’ll be fine.”

She looks at him for a moment, bright in the hazy streetlight. Then her hand is on the back of his neck and she’s pulling him towards her, standing on her toes to meet him halfway. His mind goes completely blank as her lips meet his. He lets his eyes close but as she tips toward him his hands come up on reflex to her waist to hold her against him. 

He blinks as she settles back on her feet, looking up at him like she’s stunned. 

“Gosh,” he says. He’s afraid that if he freezes he’ll see it turn to regret so he kisses her again. He tangles his hands in her hair and feels one of the pins slip free of its place. She grips his shoulder with one hand and the other slips up his jaw to the back of his neck again. 

She drags her nails though his hair and he gasps into her mouth. She pulls away and he worries, suddenly, that he’s done something wrong. Drawing a sudden breath, like she’s mustering courage, she says, “We’re going to miss my bus.”

“We’re…” he says, and his synapses misfire for a moment. “Okay. Right. Yeah. A-okay.”

“Okay.” Peggy threads her fingers through his and doesn’t let go. She doesn’t say anything while they’re sitting in the soft light of the bus, but when he looks at her she smiles. It’s shy, but it’s honest.

She closes the door of her flat behind them and flicks on the lamp, setting her bag near the door in the dim light the lamp pools on the floor. She looks at him for a moment and he says, “You’re not-- you’re not drunk, right?” He’s had enough time to sober up even if that kiss hadn’t been enough to knock him straight back into reality, but he knows she drank just as much as he did.

“No,” she says, “I’m not.”

“You’re sure? I just--” She interrupts him by kissing him again, softly but insistent, not touching him as though she doesn’t want to make him feel pressured. He traces his hands down her back and she walks them backwards toward the sofa where she pushes him gently down and settles on his lap. “You’re sure you want this?”

“Yes, now stop asking,” she says, but there’s amusement in her tone even if she’s too out of breath to laugh.

She unlaces her Converse and pulls it off, letting it fall to the floor. She reaches for the other one and he kisses his way up her neck. The sound she makes when his lips reach just below her jaw has him pushing her cardigan off her shoulders and moving his mouth to the same spot again. She has his shirt unbuttoned before he even notices what her hands are doing and then he’s shrugging it off as she works her hands under his t-shirt beneath. He unzips the back of her dress and trails his fingers along her arms as he draws the straps free of her shoulders. He runs his hands up her back, skimming over the band of her bra, until he’s tracing her jaw with his thumbs. She breaks the kiss for a moment to set her glasses on the side table and he puts his own beside them. 

She slips her hands beneath his shirt again but this time draws it over his head and drops it on the floor. She presses against him even more closely than before, the lace edging of her bra dragging delicately across his chest. She weaves her fingers into his hair. He manages to get his hands beneath the skirt of her dress where it’s gathered in folds around her waist and hooks his thumbs into the waistband of her underwear, spreading his fingers across her ass and pulling her even closer to him. She gasps at the friction and breaks the kiss to rest her forehead against his in an attempt to catch her breath. She manages to slip her hands between them and unbutton his jeans; they’re so close that to lower his zipper she slips her fingers beneath his waistband to keep the fabric from bunching. The noise he makes has her laughing breathlessly and he kisses her vindictively. 

She stands from the couch and pulls him up with her. She steps out of the dress as he kicks off his jeans and then they’re crashing together again and she’s pushing him backwards towards her bed.

When George wakes up in the morning Peggy’s still asleep, so he brews them coffee in her kitchen and brings it to her in bed.

If they’re a little late to work and arrive together, no one comments, and if he happens to smell like her coconut shampoo, no one notices that either.

**Author's Note:**

> Write me a comment, scream, whatever. I'm way too emotionally invested in this show.


End file.
